Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton summarizes and reacts to the CFPB Final Remittance Rule that has been issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "This rule has considerable implications with both intended and potentially unintended consequences."

"Consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter was $2.69 billion, down $43 million or 2%, compared to a year ago on a $115 million decline in debit network fees. These fees are passed directly to customers and therefore did not impact operating income. Adjusted revenue, which excludes certain items including debit network fees, increased $47 million, or 3% year-over-year to $1.73 billion."

They caution that year-to-year comparisons can be very misleading as the payments business didn't hit full deployment until Q42010, and wasn't mandated for on-platform game developers until Q3 2011. To help see the trends, they show quarter-to-quarter payments revenue growing throughout 2011 from $94M (Q1), to $119M (Q2), $156M (Q3), $188M (Q4). At $188M, payments represented 17% of the Q4 revenue.

Facebook also revealed that it has applied for "certain money transmitter licenses and expects to apply for additional money transmitter licenses in the United States."

Interestingly, Facebook doesn't use the term "Facebook Credits" in the S-1, preferring instead the simple term "payments". Remember also that Facebook does a 70/30 revenue split with developers, implying that the $557M in 2011 payments-related revenue came from $1.867 billion in Facebook Credit redemptions.

Brand Finance, in conjunction with The Banker, has announced the results of its latest study of the financial value of various banking brands around the world. From this year's report:

HSBC, the only British bank among the ten most valuable banking brands, knocks Bank of America off the top spot in the Brand Finance Banking 500.

Wells Fargo is the most valuable banking brand in the U.S. market, and the second most valuable worldwide.

Chinese banks performed strongly with China Construction Bank, ICBC, Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China maintaining a successful streak for Chinese banking as they secure spots in the Top 20.

There are now more banks from the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the top 20 banking brands than there are from Europe.

Each bank is accorded a brand rating (a benchmarking study of the strength, risk and future potential of a brand relative to its competitor set), as well as a brand value (a summary measure of the financial strength of the brand.)